Meeting of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council Maori
Committee
Date: Tuesday 21 April 2015
Time: 10.15 am
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Venue:
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Council Chamber
Hawke's Bay Regional Council
159 Dalton Street
NAPIER
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Agenda
Item Subject Page
1. Welcome/Notices/Apologies
2. Conflict
of Interest Declarations
3. Short Term
Replacements for 21 April 2015 3
4. Confirmation of Minutes
of the Maori Committee held on 17 February 2015
5. Matters Arising
from Minutes of the Maori Committee held on 17 February 2015
6. Follow-ups from
Previous Maori Committee Meetings 5
7. Call for Any Minor
Items Not on the Agenda 7
Information or Performance Monitoring
8. Verbal Update
on Current Issues by HBRC Interim Chief Executive
9. State of Our
Environment Five-yearly Summary Report 9
10. April 2015 Statutory Advocacy
Update 13
11. Verbal Update on Maori
Economic Development
12. Verbal Fish Hook Hui
Feedback from Mike Paku & Marei Apatu
13. Verbal Update on Hawea
Park Development
14. 11am Update on the
Whangawehi Project 'Tangata Whenua presentation'
15. Minor Items Not on the Agenda 19
HAWKE’S BAY REGIONAL
COUNCIL
Maori
Committee
Tuesday 21 April 2015
Subject: State of Our
Environment Five-yearly Summary Report
Reason for Report
1. Every five
years, Council is required by section 35(2)(a) of the Resource Management Act
1991 to report publicly on the State of the Environment in Hawke’s Bay.
2. This reporting
includes two levels of information – a summary report on the state and
changes that have taken place in the region’s environment, and technical
reports that detail the data underlying the summary report.
3. This report
deals with changes that have occurred in the period 2009 to 2014. The actual
period of reporting varies with the topic being considered, as reporting
‘seasons’ sometimes run winter to winter and sometimes summer to
summer, depending on the science discipline.
4. The summary
report deals with all the areas of the environment monitored by Council, which
are:
4.1. Air quality
and climate
4.2. Surface water
quantity and quality
4.3. Groundwater
quantity and quality
4.4. Land science
4.5. The coastal
environment.
5. The report has
been distributed only to Councillors, electronically and in hard copy format,
as it is under embargo until Council given approval for its publication. Once
that approval is given, copies will be available to the public upon
request.
Summary of State of the Environment
6. Some aspects of
the Hawke’s Bay environment have improved in the last five years. For
example, air quality has been improving on the Heretaunga Plains; Escherichia
coli (E. coli) levels in groundwater have generally improved;
and nitrogen levels in streams and groundwater of the Taharua catchment have
improved.
7. However,
although levels of nitrogen and phosphorous are improving in some places, these
nutrient levels are also getting worse in other locations. Excessive discharge
of phosphorous to streams is often accompanied by high levels of sediment
discharge, which has not improved at many sites monitored.
8. Coastal water
quality has remained largely similar to previous periods of monitoring, but
phosphorous levels have improved at one site. Metal contaminants are higher
than background levels in parts of the Ahuriri estuary, and may affect
biological processes at one site monitored.
Air Quality
and Climate
9. Hawke’s
Bay has a usually temperate climate – neither too cold, nor too wet
– but with occasional hot days in summer. In Napier the number of hot
days each year has increased and the number of cold days has decreased in the
last 75 years. Notable weather events in the last five years include the
drought of 2012-2013, and the April 2011 storm, which affected the area of the
southern Hawke’s Bay coastline most severely.
10. Air quality has improved
in Hastings and Napier over in the last five years, although domestic heating
is still the major contributor of fine particulates in the air causing winter
pollution. Open fires have been banned and older wood burners are progressively
being replaced with more efficient appliances, and HBRC provides funding
assistance through the HeatSmart programme.
Surface
Water Quantity and Quality
11. The drought of 2012-2013
was a low flow anomaly in an otherwise average to above average five years of
river flows.
12. Our water quality
monitoring shows phosphorus in surface water has improved at some sites, while
declining at one site. Nitrogen has improved at more sites than phosphorus, but
also declined at more sites. The rate of improvement for phosphorus is less
than the national rate of improvement, but for nitrogen we have fewer sites
declining than has occurred nationally. More Hawke’s Bay rivers are
getting muddier than is the case nationally, and no improvement was seen in the
last five years at any site monitored.
13. The headwaters of most
Hawke’s Bay streams are healthy places for aquatic bugs –
macroinvertebrates - but the modified lower catchments are often poor habitats
particularly where water temperatures are high and dissolved oxygen low. Lower
catchments experience high volumes of aquatic plant growth more frequently,
particularly where the river contains high levels of nutrients and there are
low levels of shading.
14. Eight of the seventeen
native fish species found in Hawke’s Bay rivers are threatened. Fifteen
of these species spend time in the ocean, migrating to and from freshwater
streams during their lives. Barriers to fish passage are being identified and
improvements made to help fish climb during their migrations.
Groundwater
Quantity and Quality
15. The long history of
groundwater use in Hawke’s Bay is driven in part by our dry climate and
hot summers causing low flows in surface streams. About 89% of all water
consented for taking is from groundwater, mostly from the Heretaunga and
Ruataniwha plains.
16. Groundwater levels have
declined about 1.5 m in part of the western Heretaunga Plains since reliable
records began in the 1960s. However, artesian groundwater levels in the eastern
Heretaunga Plains are similar to those encountered almost 150 years ago.
Groundwater levels have declined in the west, but are rising in the east of the
Ruataniwha Plains.
17. No groundwater quality
monitoring sites exceed the NZ Drinking Water Standards (NZDWS) for nitrate,
while the indicator species for faecal contamination, Escherichia coli (E.
coli), improved over the last five years, with none detected in 2013. Iron,
manganese and total hardness derived mostly from natural sources exceed the
NZDWS at a significant number of monitored sites.
18. Managing land-use to
improve groundwater and surface water quality has been effective in the Taharua
catchment, where land retirement and planting has reduced nitrogen in streams
and groundwater.
Land Science
19. The topography of
Hawke’s Bay has concentrated intensive horticulture and farming on the
Heretaunga Plains around Hastings and Napier. Sheep and deer have declined in
significance since 2007, while dairy and beef cattle have become more
important. A large portion of our land is probably too steep to farm.
20. The Hawke’s Bay
landscape is highly erodible, as seen by the large number of landslips that
developed in the eastern Tukituki catchment during the April 2011 storm. In
parts of this catchment an estimated average 5,000 tonnes of soil is eroded
from each square kilometre each year.
21. About a third of the
sediment eroded in the Tukituki catchment is lost from stream-bank erosion.
Keeping stock out of streams helps reduce the amount of sediment entering our
waterways this way. Planting around rivers also assists in reducing sediment
being lost to streams, and these approaches may also reduce the amount of
phosphorus attached to that sediment which is lost to streams.
The Coastal
Environment
22. We monitor coastal water
quality to help identify where land use affects fish and insect habitats. We
also observe rates of erosion and accretion in the coastal environment,
particularly because erosion affects settlements like Haumoana. Coastal studies
use data from two offshore wave buoy, studies of river gravel supply to the
coast, and onshore and submarine surveys.
23. Coastal water quality is
monitored more closely at bathing beaches, in estuaries and in rivers during
the months of summer recreation. In general, open-coast beaches have better
water quality than estuaries and river swimming sites, because any contaminants
are diluted by the ocean.
24. Long-term monitoring of
near-shore water quality changes shows that turbidity has improved at one of
the seven sites monitored, while it has declined at one site. Dissolved
reactive phosphorus and total phosphorus levels have both improved at one
monitored site.
25. Estuaries are the
receiving environments for river processes, coastal processes and the products
of land-use activities. For example, initial work in the Ahuriri estuary
indicates its sediments are contaminated with metals delivered in stormwater.
26. The ecology of beaches is
dominated by marine worms at places like Opoutama, where the organic material
loved by worms washes ashore. Further south bivalves and crustaceans are more
common. New programmes of work have been established to monitor the ecology of
beaches and intertidal areas.
Decision Making
Process
27. The Maori Committee is
required to make a decision in accordance with Part 6 Sub-Part 1, of the Local
Government Act 2002 (the Act). Staff have assessed the requirements
contained within this section of the Act in relation to this item and have
concluded that, as this report is for information only and no decision is to be
made, the decision making provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 do not
apply.
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Recommendations
1. That the Maori Committee receives the “State of Our
Environment Five-Yearly Summary” report.
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Dr Stephen Swabey
Manager, Science
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Iain Maxwell
Group Manager Resource Management
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Attachment/s
There are no
attachments for this report.
HAWKE’S BAY REGIONAL
COUNCIL
Maori
Committee
Tuesday 21 April 2015
SUBJECT: April 2015 Statutory Advocacy Update
Reason for Report
1. This paper reports on active proposals forwarded to the Regional
Council and assessed by staff acting under delegated authority as part of the
Council’s Statutory Advocacy project.
2. The Statutory Advocacy project (Project 192) centres on resource
management-related proposals upon which the Regional Council has an opportunity
to make comments or to lodge a submission. These include, but are not
limited to:
2.1. resource consent applications publicly notified by a territorial
authority
2.2. district plan reviews or district plan changes released by a
territorial authority
2.3. private plan change requests publicly notified by a territorial
authority
2.4. notices of requirements for designations in district plans
2.5. non-statutory strategies, structure plans, registrations, etc
prepared by territorial authorities, government ministries or other agencies
involved in resource management.
3. In all cases, the Regional Council is not the
decision-maker, applicant nor proponent. In the Statutory Advocacy
project, the Regional Council is purely an agency with an opportunity to make
comments or lodge submissions on others’ proposals. The Council’s
position in relation to such proposals is informed by the Council’s own
Plans, Policies and Strategies, plus its land ownership or asset management
interests.
4. The summary plus accompanying map outlines those proposals that the
Council’s Statutory Advocacy project is currently actively engaged in.
Decision Making
Process
5. Council is required to make a decision in accordance with Part 6
Sub-Part 1, of the Local Government Act 2002 (the Act). Staff have
assessed the requirements contained within this section of the Act in relation
to this item and have concluded that, as this report is for information only
and no decision is to be made, the decision making provisions of the Local
Government Act 2002 do not apply.
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Recommendation
1. That the Environment and Services
Committee receives the April 2015 Statutory Advocacy
Update report.
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Esther-Amy Bate
Planner
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Helen Codlin
Group Manager Strategic Development
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Attachment/s
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1
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Statutory Advocacy Update (as at 31 March
2015)
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2
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Statutory Advocacy Map
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